


The Art of Far and Near

by blackkat



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alchemy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, F/M, M/M, Romance, canon minor character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2013-10-22
Packaged: 2017-11-19 04:23:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/569050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twelve steps to immortality: this is the pinnacle of alchemy, of all alchemists. Ianto has reached final goal, and all he feels is empty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The circle inscribes itself into the concrete beneath Ianto's feet, a double ring with twelve twisting runes between the lines. He takes a step forward, another, and stands at its center. Blood drips from his fingers, hissing like acid where it touches the stone, until he opens his hand, raises it, and lets the blood pool in his palm.

The drops collect and multiply, shimmering in the dimness, until they fill the cup of his hand and overflow.

In the circle, the lines writhe, twist, as though attempting to escape. Ianto closes his eyes and whispers, " _Inmotus_ ," and they snap into place with a reverberation he can feel in his bones.

The blood is warm.

The stones are cold.

The creature that might once have been Lisa—if only he were better, if only he could have helped her the way he promised—shrieks at him, high and angry. Somewhere in the Hub, glass cracks.

The circle dissipates the noise, though, sends it safely to the side.

The concentric rings shimmer and start to glow.

There is silence. Owen and Gwen cling to the railing by the autopsy bay, battered and frightened. Tosh is on the catwalk, clearly terrified but gripping a fistful of charms that might help.

(Then again, they might do nothing at all. Lisa's not a normal creature of magic, not anymore.)

And Jack—

Ianto can't look at Jack, so he looks at the creature that might once have been Lisa, but is no longer.

"Do you know why alchemy is called 'the impossible science,' even among those who use magic like breathing?" he asks softly, and the words echo strangely through the tomblike silence.

The creature lunges at him, slavering, trying to grasp him with twisted, misshapen limbs. Before it can reach, the circle flares blue-white, and it's knocked back with a sharp cry.

"Because it _is_ impossible, for the most part." Ianto answers his own question, never looking away from the thing's huge, matte-black eyes, more like a ghoul's than any human's. "You have to have perfect internal balance. Humility and pride, avarice and altruism, emotion and logic, humanity and separation. Most people never find that."

The runes dance, glowing gold, brighter and brighter in the dimness.

" _Incipere,_ " Ianto whispers, and another circle burns to life, right beneath the creature's feet.

* * *

(Stop. This isn't where the story starts.)

* * *

"Go back to London, find yourself another life. Keep stalking me, I'll wipe your memory."

"No, but the thing is—"

"Look, any conversation between us, no matter what the subject, is over. Finished. Done. Forever. I'm getting back behind the wheel of that car. If you're still standing in the road, I'm gonna drive through you."

"So you're not going to help me catch this dragon, then?"

(Game, set, match—but there are two losers here, not one.)

* * *

(That's not the beginning, either.)

* * *

"Thanks."

"No, thank you. And you are?"

"Jones. Ianto Jones."

"Nice to meet you, Jones Ianto Jones."

* * *

(Ah, yes. That's the start.)

* * *

"The thing is I just don't understand—"

"No," Jack cuts Gwen off. "I'll tell you what I don't understand. You're going to rattle on with that 'How can this be true?' kind of shtick. What's it going to take for you people? If you want evidence of magic, how about that invasion of medusas in London on Christmas Day, turning everyone to stone? What about the battle of Canary Wharf? A necromancer in every home."

He can see the uncertainty in her eyes, the instinct—self-preservation or something like it—to stay in her safe little world, to believe what she's been told. But it's not so easy, once even the first layer of illusions has been stripped away. Gwen looks up at him, and then away, a shift of the eyes that betrays absolutely everything.

"My boyfriend says it's like a sort of terrorism. Like they put drugs in the water supplies. Psychotropic drugs. Causing mass hallucinations and stuff."

Jack scoffs. He'll never cease to be amazed by how thoroughly people manage to fool themselves. "Yeah, well, your boyfriend is stupid."

"Oh, you've met him?"

Gwen tries to be scathing, tries to save herself in that last moment before the fall.

She doesn't realize that it's already too late.

(She belongs to Torchwood now.)

* * *

"Owen Harper, Gwen Cooper."

" _Doctor_ Owen Harper, thank you. I might be a Healer, but I didn't suffer through med school for that kind of disrespect."

"Toshiko Sato, technomancer. Suzie Costello. She's second-in-command and a clairvoyant. And this is Ianto Jones. Ianto cleans up after us and gets us everywhere on time."

"I do my best."

Jack can't resist—partly because he's never seen Ianto so much as blink at _anything_ , let alone a little flirting, and partly because it's true. "And he looks good in a suit."

"Careful. That's harassment, sir." But Ianto is smiling a little even as he parries, blue eyes warm.

(He likes Jack's coat; he's said so several times, and he cares for it more carefully than even Jack does. That makes him special.)

Gwen looks between the five of them, wide-eyed and still off-guard from being found out so easily. She'll have to adjust, Jack thinks, turning his gaze from Ianto—who certainly looks edible, and no amount of extra paperwork will keep Jack from saying so—and back to her.

"So…" she says slowly, eyes still flickering back and forth, "you're all magical?"

"All but Ianto," Owen snorts, spinning back around to his computer. "Tea boy's a norm. Bit more sensitive than average, but that's all."

* * *

Suzie using necromantic artifacts in an attempt to control death, a succubus, two halves of a fortuneteller's orb with the power to see the past and predict the future, and the more general, average threats the slip through the Rift from the Everafter into the human world—they're all good distractions, drawing Torchwood's attention from the necromantic circles drawn by one of their own in the lowest levels. Ianto's thankful for them, and for the fact that they all think he's absolutely, boringly average. It lets him slip through the background without drawing attention except on purpose.

(He ignores the ache in his gut with every hour he betrays Jack, Jack who takes him to lunch and worries about him eating enough vegetables, who laughs when they're in bed together and makes Ianto laugh, too. Jack, who's even more amazing than Lisa, and gods, but Ianto feels sick for thinking that, but he can't _not_.)

When the necromancers invaded Torchwood One, they killed as many people as they could find, resurrecting them with terrifying blood rituals that gave them complete control of the victims, right down to their souls. Lisa had been resurrected, but they hadn't managed to complete the ritual before the Doctor banished them all back to their dark corner of the Everafter.

She was trapped, stuck somewhere in between life and death, necromancer's doll and revived human.

All Ianto wants is to restore her completely, but it seems that that hope—like his hope of ever having Jack look at him without horror and betrayal—is now lost.

* * *

The creature who was once Lisa kills two people and consumes their souls entirely before Ianto finally realizes that whatever made Lisa who she was is gone, consumed by necromancy and dark blood magic.

By that time, Jack and the others are back, and have uncovered the depths of Ianto's betrayal.

But he can fix it. The kind, sweet Lisa he loved would never have taken a life—she didn't even kill spiders, always stepped carefully around weeds in the sidewalk. This creature, this thing born of the necromancers' twisted manipulations and Dr. Tanazaki's careless twisting of their spells, is something he can put down and destroy like the monster it is.

It doesn't even look like Lisa anymore, and for that Ianto is impossibly thankful.

* * *

The creature that could have possibly been Lisa once burns away to ash.

(Bodies can be broken down into carbon so very neatly, after all.)

Ianto stands over the now-dull alchemical circle, over the twelve symbols that still burn like embers in a banked fire, and lets out a long, slow breath.

Twelve is the magnum opus, what no alchemist uses without careful planning and utterly controlled circumstances.

Twelve steps from nothingness to _lapis philosophorum_.

Twelve steps to the creation of a panacea, the heal-all.

Twelve steps to immortality, and few take it when they are as young as Ianto is now, but that doesn't matter anymore.

This is the pinnacle of alchemy, of all alchemists, the greatest goal of those born with power over the elements in their basest forms.

Ianto has reached final goal, and all he feels is empty.

A hand closes on Ianto's shoulder, careful but still kind, and he looks up into Jack's concerned face.

"Ianto?" the Captain asks softly.

"I used all twelve of the greatest alchemical symbols," Ianto answers, just as softly. "I didn't need to, I could have used something else, but I didn't. She wasn't Lisa anymore, she was a threat, and this is the first place I've been welcome since Canary Wharf. I couldn't let her destroy that."

And Jack—beautiful, sweet, gorgeous, generous Jack—pulls Ianto into his arms, wraps him in a careful hug and simply holds him, tucked against his broad body. Ianto sags into the hold, resting his forehead against Jack's shoulder, and lets out a long, shuddering breath.

He doesn't say anything, but somehow, he thinks Jack understands anyway.

(Home, his heart whispers.)

(Jack, his soul whispers.)

* * *

(No. This is where it really starts.)


	2. Chapter 2

_Come away, oh human child, to the waters and the wild._

_With a fairy, hand in hand, for the world's more full of weeping than you can understand._

Jack opens his hands, setting Jasmine free.

"Take her," he says, and the world is saved.

(It just doesn't feel like it.)

* * *

(Wait. That's too far forward. Go back.)

* * *

Ianto is nearly fifteen the first time he wakes up with a fire burning in his blood, gasping and breathless in a room of hand-me-downs and battered old books. He reaches out, instinctive and desperate, to turn on his bedside lamp.

He touches the stand, and it turns to gold.

(There has not been an alchemist in his family in over six hundred years.)

When he is fifteen, Ianto sells the lamp to someone who will melt it down. He never tells Rhiannon or his father about his gift, and they never find out, even when Ianto cannot touch iron for fear of changing it to gold before their eyes.

The gold sends him to college in London, far away from Newport, where he meets other people with gifts similar to his—none with the same gift, though, none at all until he finds himself recruited by Torchwood One, taken to work in their shining tower overlooking Canary Wharf.

("Don't tell anyone," the man—middle-aged, possibly ancient, quite probably immortal—tells Ianto. "Alchemists very nearly don't exist, and we like it that way. The research is all that matters, so fix your eyes on that and never waver."

Ianto wavers. He wavers and falls and tumbles downward.

But Jack catches him. So that's all right, then.)

* * *

(Too far back. Skip ahead.)

* * *

There are faery lords arrayed beneath the branches of the trees, a shining court, beautiful and supernaturally perfect. Thirteen men and thirteen women, half mounted on horses as white as burning moonlight and the other half standing stately, arrayed in robes of summer colors. Ianto looks at them, sees the shining hair and pointed ears, the swords and the magic woven into every thread of their clothes.

But their faces are so still and cold, haughty and distant.

"Suppose we make her stay with us," Jack says, just shy of desperate. His hold on Jasmine tightens, just a little, holding her back.

(Ianto can see that she wants to go, can see the longing in her face. He understands, though he can't exactly say. He understands what it's like to be the odd one, the one left outside to stand looking at what people term normality.)

(He won't begrudge her, when she goes.)

Jasmine looks up at the Captain, and there's a sort of resigned anticipation on her face. "Then lots more people will die."

(She doesn't sound upset by that; only by the fact that they might not let her go.)

"They tell you that?"

"They promised."

One of the female sidhe steps forward, tall, as thin and graceful as a willow wand. Her hair is raven and her skin is milk, her robes the color of oak leaves. She hold out her arms, and whispers, "Come away, oh human child."

And then she smiles, and the indifference is gone. She is the mother, the maiden, the wise grandmother, full of love and all the warmth of the summer sun. Ianto finds himself straining towards her without even meaning to, drawn to that smile as a flower turns towards the light.

Jasmine looks at the woman, then at Jack again. She's a pretty child, but there's something wild to her that makes it harder to see. "Next time, they'll kill everybody at my school, like they killed Roy," she says, sharp and anxious. "And that man. And your friend."

Gwen looks shaken, hopeless, stubborn. She's still holding her gun, even though it will be worse than useless against the sidhe Summer Court. "How do you know these things?" she demands.

(She wants to save Jasmine, they all do. Is Ianto the only one who sees that she doesn't want to be saved?)

As if feeling that, Jasmine turns to look at Ianto. He stares back at her, silent—he's still careful, because he's only been an active Torchwood member for a day, after his suspension. He doesn't want to risk it, but this—this isn't something he can prevent, isn't something he _will_ prevent.

"If they want to, they can make great storms, wild seas, they can turn the world to ice, kill every living thing." Jasmine tugs against Jack's grip, and Ianto takes an aborted step towards her. "Let me go!"

"Let her go, Jack," Ianto echoes softly. He's torn, though, hopes it doesn't show in his voice—if Jack asks him to, he'll use his alchemy, the reason they brought him along. He'll inscribe his circles into the earth and burn the wood to ashes, break it back down to carbon and oxygen and hydrogen. But he doesn't want to, because Jasmine wants to go, and he can't find it within himself to blame her.

Jack looks at him, eyes dark and shuttered. The others look at him, too, shocked betrayal on their faces—but it's not the first time he's seen that expression, not the first time they've turned it on him, so it's all fine. Ianto meets Jack's eyes, tries to lets Jack see all the reasons behind his words.

Jack takes a short, shuddering breath and looks back at the sidhe woman. "The child won't be harmed?" he asks, and it's more of a plea than a demand.

"Jack, you can't!" Gwen sounds horrified and outraged as she takes a half step forward, as though she can stand against these creatures, as though any of them can. Ianto would laugh at her, if he had the breath.

"Answer me! She won't be harmed?" Jack is purely anguished now, and Ianto can't help but remember how he looked when they brought Estelle's body back. What must it be like, to even contemplate surrendering a helpless child to the creatures who had so cruelly murdered his friend?

The sidhe woman looks at him, her eyes huge and liquid and midnight blue, the faintest hint of that achingly beautiful smile still on her lips. "We told you. She lives forever."

(Her voice is a bell, a thousand silver echoes on a summer night, and it makes Ianto ache for her warmth, her touch, her kindness. _Glamour_ , he tells himself sharply, but it doesn't drive the feeling away.)

"Dead world. Is that what you want?" Jasmine cries, and perhaps that's the breaking point, the match in the powder barrel. Ianto can see it in Jack's eyes.

"What good is that to you? There will be no more Chosen Ones."

The question, the demand is directed towards the sidhe, but it's Jasmine who answers.

"They'll find us, back in time."

It's possible Ianto should find that more terrifying than he does, but he can't. The sidhe have always existed. They're as much a part of this world as carbon and oxygen—more, perhaps, because even alchemists can't affect them.

Jack looks at Ianto, and Ianto looks back. He sees the decision half a heartbeat before Jack opens his hands, setting Jasmine free.

"Take her," he says, and the world is saved.

(It just doesn't feel like it.)

* * *

(That's the inevitable ending. Rewind.)

* * *

"She calls them fairies. I don't."

"What do you call them?"

"That's too broad a term. There are lots of kinds of fairies, but only one kind that steals children like this."

"What do you mean?"

"Like in science: 'fey' is the kingdom, 'fairy' is the family, and these…they're sidhe. That's the species. Summer Court, specifically, judging by what side of the equinox we're on."

"Are we talking fairy like the kind in the movies?"

"Worse."

"How come?"

"Because they're part of us, part of our world, yet we know nothing about them. So we pretend to know what they're like. We see them as beautiful men and women, kings and queens and lords, ladies in bright dresses. We imagine them riding their horses on hunts and laughing."

"But they're not?"

"No. Think dangerous. Think something you can only half see, like a glimpse, like something out of the corner of your eye with a touch of myth, a touch of the spirit world, a touch of reality, all jumbled together, old moments and memories that are frozen in amongst it, like debris spinning around a ringed planet, tossing and turning, whirling, backwards and forwards through time, all of it shaped into a creature that can enchant you with a mere breath and kill you just as easily. We only know as much about them as they want us to, only see them as they want to be seen. That's them, we have to find them, before all hell breaks loose."

(But the stakes are already laid, the game is set.)

(It's foolish to play games with the sidhe.)

* * *

(Exposition, not explanation. Moving on.)

* * *

"You shouldn't be here."

"Neither should you."

* * *

(But neither of them can leave. Not now. Run it forward.)

* * *

"I blame it on the magic mushrooms."

"What you do in private is none of our business."

( _W_ _ould you like it to be?_ Ianto doesn't ask.)

( _Very much so_ , Jack doesn't answer.)

But they can't fool themselves, not for long.

* * *

(Skip ahead a bit, to the very end of this story.)

* * *

Alchemy is the science of change, of alteration, of breaking things down to their simplest state and then rebuilding them as one wants. Ianto sits in his chair, at his desk, with an iron paperweight in his palm. He tosses from hand to hand for a moment, getting a feel of its weight, and then sets it down on the wooden surface.

A whisper of will, a murmured, " _Praescribo_ ," and an alchemical circle with a pair of runes in the center burns itself into the desk, beneath the iron sphere.

There's a creak of wood as Jack settles down in the seat across from him, crossing his arms on the back of the chair and resting his chin on them. He looks tired, and he smells a little of whiskey.

"How do you do that?" he asks after a moment.

Ianto taps the paperweight, traces the circle with a fingertip. "I imagine what I want the circle to look like, chose the symbols to represent the change that I want. Then I just…want it to be, and it is." He raises his hand over the circle, palm flat, and murmurs, " _Incipere_."

The circle glows, the runes burn, and the iron orb twists itself up, tendrils spreading and changing, leaves forming. A little more will, another nudge, and the iron atoms shift as wells.

When the light fades, a tiny tree with summer-green leaves is growing on the desk, roots buried deep. If Ianto looks closely enough, there are even acorns hanging under the leaves. He picks one carefully, because it's smaller than the head of a pin, and holds it out for Jack to see.

"Life from soulless metal," he says softly. "That's alchemy. We take the building blocks of everything and rearrange them as we see fit."

Jack takes the acorn between his thumb and forefinger, holding it up to the light to see it more clearly.

And then he smiles, and it's the like the sun has come out again.

"Amazing," he murmurs, and Ianto doesn't tell him that the most amazing thing in the room isn't his alchemy, isn't even Myfanwy the dragon roosting above their heads.

It's Jack.

* * *

(On the other side of every end is another beginning.)


	3. Chapter 3

Tosh opens her eyes to dim light and far too many shadows for comfort. She jerks upright, touching the back of her neck to check the damage. Five years in Torchwood is enough that she's fairly used to being kidnapped, or waking up after being knocked out without warning—they all are.

"You know, I never liked camping."

She reaches towards her ankle holster automatically, and a soft snort cuts her off.

"Don't bother. They took the guns."

Ianto is sitting across from her, quiet in the darkness, but paler than she's ever seen him. His hands are clasped loosely in front of him, but they keep twitching, as if he's resisting the urge to move, to draw his circles and break the stone back down to silicone, oxygen, and aluminum.

(She shuts down the small part of her brain that insists on listing the chemical composition and percentages of each element; her mind's always been too active that way.)

"Charming place they've got," she says, glancing around.

It's not.

It's really not.

Ianto takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "Judging by the sound reverberations and the…air quality…pretty deep underground. Chances of rescue?" He's even more tightly contained than usual, and he looks so young out of his customary suits, away from the safety of the Hub. Tosh has to drag her gaze away, turning instead to study the walls.

"We won't need rescuing. I haven't met a cell yet I couldn't get out of," she says firmly.

( _That's a lie_ , her mind whispers tauntingly, calling up memories of a tiny UNIT cell kept away from all technology more complicated than a large padlock. She pushes that away, too.)

Another breath, as though bracing himself, and then he asks softly, "What were they?"

Tosh doesn't look back, giving him the privacy of his fear. There's a chute off to one side, so she heads to it, seeking daylight. "I don't know. It happened too quickly. Are you worried?"

"A little." The admission sounds ripped out of him, unwilling.

She touches the chute, and her hand comes away wet with blood.

"Have you…?" She lets her words trail off, but waves a hand pointedly, keeping her palm facing away from him.

"I didn't know if we were being watched."

When Tosh turns, Ianto has unlaced his fingers, letting them rest casually at his side. She wonders at the strength in them, the power they contain when they look so slim and elegant. He's watching her, expression still tense but body forcibly relaxed, as he nods to the corners of the room. "You can affect cameras, yeah?"

She closes her eyes and calls her own magic without another word, berating herself for not doing it sooner. But she's hidden it for so long, kept it a secret from so many people, that it's almost jarring to be in the presence of someone who _knows._

There's nothing here for her gift to latch onto, though, no systems or programming or complex code. The only thing with electricity is the fridge in the corner.

"Lights?" Ianto asks after a moment, practical even now.

Tosh shakes her head. "They're burned out. But there aren't any cameras here. If they're watching us, it's not that way."

Ianto looks away from her, closing his eyes.

(Sometimes she forgets that he's the youngest of all of them.)

(Right now she can't think of anything else.)

He licks his lips and takes another deep breath, and says softly, "The best chance we have of finding out what they are is waiting for them to come for us." His fingers close again, hands fisting at his sides like he's refraining from using his alchemy to turn this whole structure to dust and sand.

Tosh watches his face, sees the tightly controlled fear there, remembers the stripped-bare corpse left as a warning for them.

Ianto isn't a field agent, for all that he's faced down the sidhe with them, for all that he survived Torchwood One's fall.

 _A distraction_ , she thinks desperately. _Something. Anything._

"God, I'm hungry," she blurts, and wants to clap a hand over her mouth at the inanity of it.

Ianto looks up at her, strangely odd in his canvas jacket and sensible jeans. "You should have had that cheeseburger," he offers.

Tosh grimaces. "Not _that_ hungry."

They smile at each other, a moment of bravery in the darkness.

Tosh looks away, over towards the corner. "How about that fridge?" she asks, keeping her tone light.

(As a distraction, it's fairly far off the mark.)

* * *

(But that's the middle. It makes no sense to start the story there.)

* * *

"I hate the countryside. It's dirty, it's unhygienic. And what is that smell?"

"That would be grass."

"It's disgusting."

* * *

(That's the start, but it's not the beginning.)

* * *

"He's meat," the man says, as though it should be obvious. He shoves the bound boy to the ground. "I'm afraid we're all just meat."

The plastic sheeting crinkles behind him as he vanishes through it.

Ianto takes a breath and closes his hands in the chilly cuffs, feeling the metal dig into his skin. "Get ready to run," he murmurs, watching the woman with the shotgun hand the man a bat as he reappears.

Tosh drags in a breath that suddenly feels too small to fill her lungs. "What're you going to do, put us on meat hooks?" she demands, and it's a miracle that her voice doesn't waver.

The man turns to her, eyes dark with something farther from human than any mythical monster she's ever met. "No, not yet," he answers, and it's not reassuring in the least. "You see, meat…has to be tenderized first."

Ianto's hands open, palms flat. " _Praescribo_ ," he whispers, sharp and desperate. " _Incipere_."

A circle with three interlocking rings burns itself into the cheap linoleum.

The twelve runes, shared between each ring, begin to glow.

* * *

(Rewind.)

* * *

"Oh, come on! It's just a bit of fun! Who was the last person you snogged?"

"See! You even sound like an eight-year-old! Who the hell says 'snog'?"

"Mine was Rhys."

"Yeah, well, there's a surprise."

"Tosh, your go."

"It's easy for you!"

"Oh, come on! Spill the beans!"

"Owen."

"What?"

"Really?"

"Tosh, in your dreams."

"Three am, Christmas Eve, in front of the Millennium Centre. Waiting for a cab.  
I had mistletoe."

"Christmas? You've not had a snog since?"

"No."

"Well. Lucky me, eh?"

"So who was yours?"

* * *

(Stop. We know how this part ends.)

* * *

"It's my turn, is it?" Ianto asks. It's impossible to stay silent, the words bursting off his tongue before he can check them—but he's angry, too, because they were all there when it happened. They should remember what he lost. "It was Lisa."

Gwen's eyes are wide and pitying. "Ianto, I'm sorry…"

(The pity eats at him like nothing else. He _hates_ it.)

"Sorry she's dead? Or sorry you mentioned it?"

(They've been ignoring it, all of them, and he can't stand it one moment longer.)

"I just didn't think," Gwen starts, as though that's any excuse at all.

Ianto looks up at her, looks up at them all, and a smile twists his lips, makes his face ache. "You forgot." It's wry and soft and more than a little bitter, traced with envy, because they _can_ forget, they're able to. They don't have to live the rest of their lives having killed the one they loved.

"We should get some firewood," Owen says, and it's nearly blurted as he stands.

Gwen's just as quick out of her seat to follow him. "I'll give you a hand."

When Ianto raises his head from contemplation of his hands—the hands that killed Lisa—Jack is watching him.

Ianto looks away.

* * *

The man doesn't even have time to scream as he disintegrates to ash.

Tosh runs and doesn't look back.

In the enclosed space of the kitchen, the report of the shotgun is deafening

The blast takes Ianto in the heart.

* * *

(This isn't the end. It's a beginning.)

* * *

Gold is bendable, malleable, even when it's relatively cold. Warm from the heat of transmutation, it bends easily. Ianto slips his hands free of the golden handcuffs and lets them fall to the ground, rising to his feet.

There's blood on his second-favorite jacket, blood on his shirt.

Even as he looks down, even as he smears his hand across the crimson wetness, the damaged flesh closes, the wound fading away.

Twelve steps to immortality, and few alchemists take it when they are as young as Ianto is now.

Twelve steps to immortality, and then there's no turning back.

The three circles are still glowing.

Ianto meets the woman's eyes— _Helen_ , he thinks. _He called her Helen_ —and raises a hand, bloody palm cupped. Crimson liquid rises within, sharp with the smell of copper.

The blood drips down, hissing like acid where it touches the floor.

" _Evito_ ," he snarls, and shoves the change into her very atoms.

Sand spills to the ground, mixing with the ash, and Ianto collapses to his knees, breathing hard.

* * *

(There's an end, if you want to leave it there.)

* * *

(Fast forward.)

* * *

Jack finds Ianto sitting on the steps leading into the house, head bowed over his hands. His palms are rusty with drying blood, his hiking boots grey with dust, and Jack doesn't need to hear what happened. He can guess.

Carefully, he takes a seat beside Ianto, and asks, "You're not hurt?"

Ianto is a good liar—very good, most of the time. Right now, Jack can see the hesitation in his eyes, the furtive flicker of his expression as he bites back the words that spring forward instinctively.

"Yes," he says at length, more guarded than such a simple question should leave him. "I'm not hurt."

"Good." Jack leans back on his hands, tilting his head back towards the darkening sky. There's more to deal with, other cannibalistic villagers to worry about until the local police can arrive, but just for now, Jack finds that he's too relieved to care. "Maybe someday you'll tell me what's wrong?"

Ianto glances at him sidelong. A small smile is tugging at his lips, bare and soft.

"Yeah," he agrees, following Jack's gaze up to the clouds above them. "I think I will."

* * *

(Stop. Pause it here. This is as good a place to end as any.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On a personal note note, if I go overboard on any aspect of this story, please let me know. I personally get a kick out of the stop-start-rewind-skip-ahead theme, and it's fun to write, so I'm liable to abuse it. If I do, just (verbally) smack me.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Several people have mentioned that Ianto here is much darker than in canon. An explanation/my reasoning is included at the end.

"Do whores have prayers?"

The pistol is aimed and cocked.

Mary smiles at him, bright and sweet even with a bruise spreading across her cheek and leaves in her hair.

His finger tightens on the trigger, and the shot is fired.

* * *

(That's the beginning, but it's too far back for this story. Fast forward.)

* * *

"This is incredible. This is _the_ most incredible thing I ever heard. They should make an action figure of you."

Mary is beautiful, dark and golden, eyes bright as she leans forward over the table. Tosh has to turn her eyes away.

"You were right, about the pendant. I see it now—it can be used for good."

With a quick, bright grin, Mary settles back, as self-satisfied as a cat when she catches Tosh's eye. "What did they say at work? How did you explain it?" she demands, but Tosh has a feeling she already knows what the answer is going to be. She used to wear the pendant, too, after all.

"I didn't tell them," she admits softly, and is still feels like a betrayal. But the technology in the pendant is so captivating, so different from anything on earth. Tosh is a technomancer; her magic sings in wires, hums with electricity, dances through circuits. Computers are beautiful to her eyes, programs are like flowers, and this pendant is like a supernova trapped in a locket, endlessly enthralling beauty that she can hold in the palm of her hand.

She doesn't want to let it go, doesn't want to share it.

The others wouldn't understand.

"I think that's wise," Mary agrees, pushing her cup to the side. Her smile is free and blinding when she meets Tosh's eyes. "I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to kiss you now."

"Mary, no," Tosh protests, because she shouldn't want this, she shouldn't let Mary tie her up in knots so easily. She's loved Owen—loved him hopelessly, helplessly—for as long as she's known him, and this—

This isn't something she's supposed to want.

But Mary just laughs. "Listen! You do something unbelievably brave and sexy, I have to kiss you. I don't make the rules."

And Tosh has _never_ been brave or sexy to _anyone_ , let alone some as bright-dark and lovely as Mary. It's just as heady as the pendant, enthralling in a way that makes Tosh feel drunk and euphoric on the perfection of it.

She kisses Mary, Mary kisses her, and that's it, she's gone. Lost.

(Mary's just become everything in her world, and Tosh should be terrified, but she just wants _more_.)

* * *

(In a kinder world, it might have been an ending. But here, it's the middle of the tale.)

* * *

Mary's cigarette curls smoke up towards the ceiling, grey spirals that look like fog, or maybe ghosts. "So," she ventures, "what's happening with the thing you found on the building site?"

Tosh shakes her head, glad for the change of subject. She's never been good with emotions, with emotionally charged situations. Right now she wants nothing more than to crawl across the table and curl herself into Mary's skin, and has to wrap her hands around her cup to distract herself. "Don't know, my boss is dealing with that."

One blond eyebrow arches, ridiculously perfect. "I thought you did all the technological stuff," Mary says, but there's no confusion in her voice. It's almost like she's making a point, but Tosh can't think what that point would be.

"I do, but sometimes our jobs overlap a bit," she defends, not entirely certain why she suddenly feels defensive. "I'm doing—there's an admin thing he's asked me to do."

"Don't you have a secretary for that?"

Tosh thinks of Ianto, the self-disgust in this thoughts, the pain of them. He's their secretary, for the most part, even though it makes Tosh a bit twitchy sometimes. She's read up on alchemy a bit, the little there is to read, and born alchemists are really terrifyingly powerful. But Ianto still cleans up after them, still brings them all coffee and takes care of the filing and makes sure the kitchen is stocked with all of their favorite snacks. It makes her wonder, sometimes, if he thinks of it as a punishment for what he did to Lisa.

"It's actually quite complicated," she manages to say, dragging her thoughts away from him, away from the memory of running through the dark woods, so sure that someone was going to come after her.

(But no one did.)

"So, what's he found out?" Mary asks, leaning forward like she wants another kiss. There's a wicked gleam in her eyes that says she can see Tosh's gaze automatically flicker down to her lips, and likes it.

Dragging her attention back to the conversation is far harder than Tosh thinks it should be. "I don't know. He's not said anything."

"That's kind of strange."

"It isn't, it's fine." Defending Jack is automatic by now, the words rote. They've been said to Owen, to Gwen, to UNIT specialists and the police and government officials.

(Even when they hurt. Even when she disagrees with them.)

"No, sure. I mean, if he's keeping stuff from you, there's bound to be a  
reason."

(Mary's smile is pleased, like she's won something, but Tosh can't think what.)

* * *

(Eight ball, corner pocket. She's won.)

* * *

(Fast forward.)

* * *

There is silver light, like a sun. Mary shines under the kitchen's lights, alien and beautiful.

"This is why you can't tell them," she says, and her voice is river-song and ocean waves, sweet breezes and laughing brooks. There are wings behind her, as pure and gleaming as light reflecting off rippling water, only half-seen, and Tosh can't breathe for the beauty of her. She reaches out, entranced even as she's terrified, and Mary mimics her.

Their hands meet, touch, and Tosh gasps.

"You're cold. Who are you?" she asks. _Angel_ is on the tip of her tongue, but that's not right.

"Still the person you kissed. The person you caressed," Mary says, and her smile is still wicked. That's why 'angel' will never suit her. She's temptation to her core, and revels in it.

Her form shifts, resettles into the woman Tosh shared her bed with, and she looks at Tosh with confidence that just barely covers a flicker of uncertainty. "Say something," she murmurs, and even though it's not begging, Tosh can hear the plea in it.

She takes a breath, ignoring how it shudders. "So…I'm shagging a woman and a creature from the Everafter." It sounds insane to say it out loud, because Tosh has always known herself. This isn't anything like what she would normally do, but she can't bring herself to care.

Mary's mouth quirks up in a bare half-smile, tentative but quickly strengthening. "Which is worse?" she asks, and there's laughter buried in her voice.

Tosh looks at her, sees the warmth in her blue eyes, and knows that even though she should end this here, she won't. She can't. So she smiles back and says, "Well, I know which one my parents would say."

* * *

(Turn the clock back, just a little.)

* * *

"So I've just come from a really interesting conversation with a Detective  
Inspector Henderson."

"Right."

"Interesting because, firstly, the man had the biggest hands I've ever seen, and secondly, because of the story he told me about you saving a woman and her kid from being murdered by her ex-husband."

"Yeah, no, I was going to tell you about that."

"So why didn't you?"

"I don't know, it wasn't a work thing, just a… _thing_ thing. Stuff happens all the time that's not pertinent to here."

"You do this all the time? So you secretly fight crime, is that it, Tosh?"

"I didn't want it to look like I was showing off."

"The guy they arrested, Henderson, said you heard him muttering to himself as he was walking along, and that's what tipped you off."

"Mm. I couldn't really work out what he was saying at first, and then it was like, 'Jesus!'"

"That's weird because when I'm about to murder someone, I'm really careful not to talk to myself about it while I'm in the street."

"No, sure. I mean, that's lesson one."

"Hmm."

(There are no thoughts from him at all, no sound. It's like he's already dead.)

* * *

(The ending's clear from this point on. Skip ahead.)

* * *

"Now this ... This is incredible. You know what it is?"

"It's a transporter, it can open a door in the Rift. Mary was a political prisoner—she was exiled here on Earth. Look, Jack—"

"You've got half of it right. Mary—it is Mary, isn't it? You want to tell her the really interesting bit?"

(There's only silence.)

"No? Chatty, isn't she? I don't know how you got a word in edgeways, Tosh.  
It makes a two-man door. Or a two-siren door. That's what your people are, aren't they? A two-siren door. Big enough for one prisoner and one guard. You want to tell us what happened to the guard, Mary?"

"I killed him."

* * *

Tosh clasps the pendant around her neck.

_The way she looks at you with those eyes - she's like an animal._

That's Gwen. Of course she wouldn't understand.

Then Mary's knife is at her throat, and Tosh wonders if she ever understood at all.

_It's ridiculous - we're unarmed, we're just shouting at her._

Owen, who Tosh has almost completely forgotten the last few days.

_Not again. Please, God, not again._

Ianto. Tosh sees the look on his face, the expression in his eyes, and feels her heart all but stop. He's holding a gun, but one-handed.

The other hand is at his side, and far more dangerous for it.

* * *

(Skip.)

* * *

"That's what they think of you. That's who you've been working with for all  
these years."

The voice in her ears is poison, all the more for the truth in it.

 _Siren_ , Tosh thinks desperately, trying to remind herself, trying to shake off the spell, but she can already tell it's not going to work.

She doesn't _want_ to.

"It's not true, Tosh, don't listen." Owen sounds desperate, angry, but he's the one who's never seen her has more than an extension of the technology she controls, like a living circuit board, if he even thinks about her that much.

Mary's lips are still so soft against her cheek, the words an intimate whisper on her skin, just as they were last night. "But not me. Whatever I've done, it doesn't change the way I feel about you. We have a connection, Toshiko, something real."

* * *

(Back to the beginning.)

* * *

"Is it from the Everafter?"

"And how. I'm picking up traces of technomancy, fey magic, and even basic alchemy."

"Any idea what it is?"

"Not a clue. Could be a weapon. Or a really big stapler."

* * *

(Fast forward.)

* * *

Light flares, blinding, like a captured sun, and the Rift between the human world and the Everafter splits like a zipper being pulled. It wraps around Mary, grabs her and drags her back into the world of her birth.

Then the light is gone, and the doorway with it.

Mary, too.

"What did she—? Has she gone home?" Tosh demands, and she can still feel heartbroken, even with everything Mary did to her, because she's never loved in a healthy way, and she's not about to start.

Jack looks at her, eyes serious even if his expression is still half-joking. "It was made with basic alchemy," he says, looking past her. Tosh turns her head, sees Ianto watching them, grim and sad. "I had Ianto take a look at it. We reset the coordinates."

"Where to?" It comes out accusing, but Tosh can't find it in herself to regret that. She'd thought Ianto of all people would understand doing stupid things for love.

( _But he killed Lisa when she changed_ , a little voice reminds Tosh. _He turned his own girlfriend into ash when he realized that she was a murderer, that she wasn't what she used to be. What did you_ really _expect?_ )

"To the middle of the Everafter's largest desert," Jack says, jokingly. "But it's okay. Plenty warm in the daytime, after all."

Sirens are water creatures. They need it as much as they need air.

It's a cruel death.

"You killed her," Tosh whispers.

"Yes." Jack's voice is harsh, final.

Tosh turns her head away, and weeps.

* * *

(Run if forward, all the way to the very end.)

* * *

"It's a curse," Tosh says, and the pendant cracks into pieces beneath the heel of her boot.

(Jack's hand is warm on her skin as he cups her chin, uses his thumb to wipe a tear away. He keeps it there for one more moment, meeting her eyes, and then lets go, turns, and walks away.

There's a familiar shadow waiting at the corner of the Plass, a dark shape dressed in a neat bespoke suit. Tosh watches as Ianto joins Jack in front of the invisible lift, and then vanishes with him.)

The Plass is dark, but the lights around it are bright. Tosh lifts her chin squares her shoulders, and sits up a little straighter.

* * *

(Another end, but the hardest part is starting over.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An explanation/my reasoning regarding this Ianto:
> 
> In _Cyberwoman_ , Ianto never really stopped believing Lisa could be saved until she'd killed Annie, the innocent pizza girl, and changed her own appearance. The same happened here, only her change in appearance wasn't into another innocent that Ianto knew; it was into a necromantic monster, something twisted and broken. Ianto might not have had a gun, but he realized that it wasn't Lisa anymore, and used the weapon available to him: his alchemy. He was horrified and terrified and overreacted, using all twelve alchemical symbols, the same way he overreacted when facing death (for all that it wouldn't really kill him, though he was doubtless still unaccustomed to immortality) with the cannibals.
> 
> When he uses the stun gun in canon, it's always in situations where he's generally in control (i.e. _Meat_. Note that he didn't use one when facing the blowfish in _Kiss Kiss Bang Bang_ , another situation where he didn't have any control).
> 
> And…yeah, that's my thinking here. Does that make any sense at all?


	5. They Keep Killing Suzie

"If Suzie could lockdown the Hub, she must've installed a way of reversing it just in case." Tosh looks between them all, eyes worried, but there's a trace of anger there, too.

Watching from his seat on the stairs, Ianto understands. Gwen is so sure she's right, so secure in her humanity, that she never stops to think about the rest of them, and it's gotten old.

"Yeah," Jack says, and he sounds tired, angry, frustrated. He glances over at Tosh. "Your power—can you…?"

Tosh shakes her head. "Suzie must have put some sort of ward on the systems. I can't even touch them."

The sudden crash of Jack slamming his hand into the desk makes them all jump. "Damn it! There has to be a way out!"

"Let's take stock of talents, yeah?" Owen snaps. "Our norm's gone rogue alongside the undead clairvoyant with a kink for necromancy, our technomancer's bloody _useless_ , I'm just a Healer, and I don't see your charm affecting _anyone_ from fifty feet underground, Harkness. What am I missing?"

"Me."

The softly spoken syllable draws their attention, makes them turn to stare at Ianto as he rises from the stairs. He looks back at them, meets Owen's disbelief, Tosh's sudden hope, and Jack's surprise without flinching, without backing away.

"Suzie died before you found out I was anything but a tea boy," he says, meeting Jack's gaze. "Even if she planned for Tosh, she won't have done anything to stop an alchemist."

The faith in Jack's face is almost painful, but Ianto can't look away as he nods and says, "All right, Ianto. Get us out of here."

* * *

(Rewind.)

* * *

"It fell through the Rift about forty years ago. Lay at the bottom of the Bay till we dredged it up. I always figured this wasn't just lost. Whatever necromancer made it wanted rid of it."

"You know, we never gave it a cool name."

"I thought we called it the Resurrection Gauntlet?"

" _Cool_ name."

"What about the Risen Mitten?"

(Silence from all quarters.)

"I think it's catchy."

* * *

(Skip.)

* * *

"At last. You must be Torchwood? My team bitch about you all the time."

Jack gives he a smile, because he can't not. It's his ability—maybe not as flashy as Ianto's, or as useful as Tosh or Owen's, but far more insidious. "And you are?"

"Detective Swanson." She has a firm grip, just this side of a pissing contest, and a no-nonsense expression.

"I'm Captain Jack Harkness." He tones down the charm, because they're going to be working together, and it's rude to use it for too long. Better that she knows her own mind, rather than blindly follows him around—though, granted, her will's probably too strong for that level of enchantment.

"So I've heard," Swanson drawls, a hint of humor in her eyes, though it's buried deep. "Are you always this dressy for a murder investigation?"

The straight line is so perfect that Jack can't resist—he never can. "What, you'd rather me naked?" he asks with a grin, sliding off his sunglasses.

"God help me, the stories are true," Swanson mutters, but it's amused.

The sunglasses go back on, and Jack's pleased with everything in general right now, murder investigation aside. It's sunny, his team is working smoothly again, Gwen's a fully trained agent, and Ianto seems settled, easy, rather than a silent, mourning shadow.

"Who's the victim?" Gwen asks, and then everything goes to hell.

* * *

(One turn ahead, and that's enough.)

* * *

"Oh, my god…"

"Looks like somebody wants your attention."

The letters are garishly red, dripping down the wall as though written in haste. The bodies are covered in red, as well, splayed out on the bed like some macabre presentation. Above them, a bright mockery of life left skewed and blood-splattered, is a framed photograph of the victims, happy and smiling.

Jack looks over the scene, grim and grey. "They've got it," he says.

* * *

(Fast forward.)

* * *

"He's gone."

"Let me keep trying!"

"Gwen, he's dead."

"But I can bring him back!"

"The glove only works once."

"But I can do it, just let me try!"

"Gwen, look at me. He's gone."

"That was amazing. She's a natural. Twenty-four seconds."

"Give Ianto a stopwatch and he's happy."

"It's the button on the top."

"What do you think, Gwen? Do you want to stop?"

(She's still wearing the glove. She doesn't want to stop, and this is how it starts.)

* * *

(Skip.)

* * *

Ianto takes a short breath and raises his hands to head-height, facing the cog door. There's no spark, no flash of light, but when he turns his hands palm-out and traces a circle into the air in front of him, the lines glow. They shimmer in the murky gloom, like concentrated moonlight, or lightning hammered flat and twisted into shape. A single ring, two runes like red-gold embers in the center.

"No blood?" Tosh asks, softly enough that he could ignore it if he wanted to. He forgets, at times, that she's seen him do this before, more than the rest of them. There was so much blood in that small kitchen in Brynblaidd, so much blood when Lisa tried to kill them all. In her mind, she's probably linked all alchemy to a need for blood, like necromancy.

But alchemy is the opposite, really. Alchemy is _life_.

"No," he says absently, half of his mind on the circle between his hands. "In alchemy, at least, it's always much harder to destroy than it is to create. I'm not destroying anything here. Just…changing it." Another breath, careful and balanced, and he whispers, " _Permuto_."

The circle spins, slowly at first and then faster, the runes a streak of fire in the center. Ianto steps back, fingers already sketching another circle, even as he murmurs, " _Coepio_."

The spinning circle imbeds itself in the thick steel of the door, and the whole thing shudders. Like a heat haze from nowhere, it shimmers, wavers, and then shifts to solid oak with a groaning creak.

Behind him, Owen starts to move. "I've got something that can cut through—"

"No," Ianto cuts him off, balancing the second circle between his hands, "just wait. _Muto_."

The second circle strikes the wood with a sound like a gong, and water floods the opening, sweeping away from the now-cleared doorway in a rush. Ianto sags a little, stumbling back a step as the tension in his body releases.

Jack catches him, one hand on his elbow, one arm around his waist. "Let's go," he tells Owen and Tosh. "Get the SUV. We'll be right there."

There's no argument; they're already grabbing their gear and running for the garage by the time Jack finishes speaking. As they disappear down the corridor, the Captain turns his eyes on Ianto.

"I'm fine," Ianto says, before he can speak. "It's just more concentration than I'm used to, to change such a specific thing. It would have almost been easier to take out the whole wall."

Jack snorts softly. "Well, for one, I'm glad you didn't turn the whole Hub into a lake, but that's just personal preference. Are you going to be all right staying here? Suzie might have left us some other surprises."

Ianto smiles at him, pale but fierce, and wriggles his fingers. "Alchemy, Jack. She couldn't plan for that. I'll be fine."

He pulls Ianto as upright as Ianto is capable of and steers him towards Tosh's computer monitors, where he collapses into the chair. As soon as Ianto waves him off, Jack bolts for the garage. The SUV is already running, and Tosh slides into the back as Jack throws himself in the front.

"Tosh—"

"I'm already tracking Gwen's cell phone," she cuts in, eyes gone electric-white with her magic. "They've just arrived at Greenleaves Hospital. I'm programming the coordinates into the GPS now."

The screen of the navigational unit comes alive, and Jack peels out of the garage. "Ianto, call Swanson, get the roads clear," he orders into the comm. "I'm gonna break the speed limit, big time."

* * *

(Break it off here; switch scenes.)

* * *

Gwen's eyes are drifting closed, fluttering shut as the road stretches out in front of the car.

"Tired?" Suzie asks softly.

Gwen pulls herself up and manages a quick smile. "I'm fine."

"Don't want you falling asleep at the wheel. One corpse is enough for this car, thanks."

"Don't say that."

"What?"

"Corpse. 'Cos you're not."

"What am I, then?"

"I dunno. You're just not, though."

* * *

(Run it forward, right to the end.)

* * *

"The glove. Ianto! Destroy the glove! It's keeping them connected!"

Ianto's up and out of the chair before the Captain finishes, Latin already on his lips as he staggers to a halt above the cold storage. The glove gleams menacingly in the low light, the metal engraved with necromantic runes, and Ianto hates it with all of his soul in that moment. Necromancy never comes to any good, not at Torchwood One and not here. He'd liked Suzie once, appreciated her swift mind and quick wit, her orderly ways. But now she's been corrupted, changed, and the only thing that he can blame is this piece of magic, this artifact that never should have been recovered.

" _Adnihilo_ ," he commands, fierce and sharp, and the circle burns to life beneath the glove, cherry-red and smoldering. Six runes within, six runes without, and there isn't even ash left when they fade.

Even over the comms, Gwen's gasp is clear, as is the ringing report of Jack's gun and the dull thud as Suzie's body falls lifeless for a second time.

* * *

(In inceptum finis est.)

* * *

(But there's a coda here; let it end on a lighter note.)

* * *

"Thanks for doing this," Jack says, looking down at Suzie's body, carefully arranged in the morgue drawer.

Ianto keeps his eyes on the clipboard, on the details of Suzie's life—what they know, at least, that escaped her purge of the computer systems—as they appear under his pen. "Part of my job, sir," he says, and it is. He's still general support, for all that he's an alchemist. That was proved today, when they'd forgotten all about his talents.

Not that Ianto minds, exactly. Alchemy is a dangerous thing, and he's never used it _lightly_. It's just…it's also a part of him, and they all keep overlooking it. That's the difficult part.

"No," Jack says tiredly, and it takes Ianto a moment to remember what he's disagreeing with. "I should be doing it, but…" He sighs and leans back against the wall, bleakly looking up at the hundreds of drawers, each one carefully labeled. "One day, we're going to run out of space."

It's the look on his face—old and tired and far grimmer than Captain Jack Harkness should ever be—that motivates Ianto. He pauses, pen going still a few lines above the bottom of the page. _Madness_ , he tells himself. _The worst timing, too._ But…

But this is Torchwood, and if not now, then there might never be a chance at all.

A breath to steel himself, another for courage, and he raises his head. "If you're interested…I've still got that stopwatch."

The bleakness is gone, replaced by curiosity as Jack raises an eyebrow at him. "So?"

"Well." Ianto has to fight off the smile that's pulling at his mouth, because this has to be one of the most awkward proposals in the history of sex. "Think about it. Lots of things you can do with a stopwatch."

And then Jack grins, blatantly suggestive, and the entire thing is worthwhile. Even if they never go further than this, Ianto is content with that smile alone. "Oh, yeah. I can think of a few things."

Which is good, because Ianto can't come up with a single damned one. Nevertheless, he smiles back and acknowledges, "There's quite a list."

"I'll send the others home early. See you in my office in ten." Jack pushes off the wall, still smiling.

The stopwatch is still in Ianto's pocket. He pulls it out and hits the button, trying not to laugh at himself. "That's ten minutes, and counting." Then the blank lines on the paper catch his eye. "Oh, Jack? What do you want me to say on the death certificate?"

Jack pauses a few yards away, serious again. "Good question."

"She had quite a few deaths in the end," Ianto offers, an explanation for the question, because it's certainly not a normal one, even in their line of work.

"I don't know." Jack looks back at the drawer, and there's a flash of something both whimsical and weary on his face. "Death by Torchwood."

That fits as nothing else does. Ianto writes it down, and looks back at Suzie. "I'll put a few runes on the door, or a charm, just in case she goes walking again." Because the last thing they need is a thrice-dead former coworker trying to kill them all yet again.

"Nah, no chance of that," Jack says, turning towards the door again. "The resurrection days are over, thank God."

(There's something ironic in that statement, in his voice. Ianto only catches it because he's thinking of a shotgun blast to the chest, and how it never even made him waver.)

Maybe that's why he gives voice to the thought that's been in the back of his mind since the first time they found the glove. Normally, he'd be content to keep quiet about it, to let the others notice. But this time, it doesn't seem that they will, and Ianto can't stay silent anymore.

"Oh, I wouldn't be to sure about that," he says evenly, and Jack pauses in the doorway, shoulders suddenly stiff. "That's the thing about gloves, sir. They come in pairs."

Jack turns, one hand on the doorframe, and looks back at him. Ianto meets his eyes for a long moment, then drops his gaze to his clipboard, signing off on the report.

Another beat, and Jack's footsteps continue on, out of the morgue.

In Ianto's pocket, the stopwatch ticks towards ten, and Ianto smiles a little in anticipation.


	6. Interlude: Ouroboros

The room is dark and cold, well beneath ground level, and reminds Ianto horrifyingly of the cellar in Brynblaidd. There are no lights, only scattered, broken boxes and scraps of metal. What little illumination there is comes from a barred vent, high up in the wall, and it's hardly enough to see a hand in front of his face.

It's more than enough to see the Jack's corpse, lying sprawled six paces from where Ianto landed when they threw him in here.

"No," he whispers, because what light there is falls directly on Jack, and Ianto can see the bloody, awful, shattered mess that is his torso, ripped open and half-crushed and still slowly oozing blood. He gags, covers his mouth tightly, but can't tear his eyes away from that deathly still form.

"No."

But it's more plea than denial, and Ianto knows that. Knows that Jack is dead and isn't an alchemist, that he'll never be able to open his eyes and smile at Ianto again. _No_ , he thinks once more, and there's a tide of fire rising beneath his skin, overwhelming, stealing his breath. It's hot, so hot, pain and fury and wild, agonizing grief, because Ianto has lost his whole world _again_ , and that's enough to shatter every last thread of control he might have ever had.

"No," he whispers once more, and then it isn't dark, because there are circles, dozens of them, gouging into the concrete beneath his feet, all around the room, digging in and settling. Some of them are blazing silver; some of them are burning gold. Others glow sullenly, like overheated metal, or glitter like starlight on ice, and the room is suddenly brilliantly illuminated, even the smallest shadows driven back.

" _Termino_ ," he whispers, even though this is one time he doesn't need a focus, doesn't need anything to channel his power; if he wanted, if he was an ounce more out of control, he wouldn't even need the circles.

" _Termino_ ," he whispers again, and there are footsteps pounding in the hallway, returning even though they just tossed Ianto through the door moments ago. The thud of hooves, the hiss of scales on concrete, the patter of too many legs—they all feel what Ianto is doing, all feel the magic even if they didn't before. Even if they thought he was a normal human who had stumbled over an operation of human-hunters from the Everafter.

 _Wrong_ , Ianto thinks, and it's vicious, feral, everything inside of him that he's ever tried to hide, everything humans don't allow themselves to be anymore, the heart of a predator that has survived and dominated since the very dawn of time. _You have no idea how wrong you are_.

Nine, eleven, fifteen circles, twenty of them, twelve runes repeated over and over, and Jack's body lying mangled and untouched between them, thrown into stark, bloody relief in the sudden wash of light.

Ianto turns his face away, and whispers, " _Incipere_."

* * *

(Stop. Just stop. This isn't the beginning.)

* * *

The day Ianto starts work in the Torchwood One Archives, he meets a man with blond hair and green eyes, who carries himself like someone far older than the thirty-something he seems. He is standing at the front desk when the woman from Human Resources leads Ianto in, and he watches surreptitiously as the woman goes in to speak with the Chief Archivist, leaving Ianto standing somewhat uneasily by the doorway.

It takes a moment, but Ianto feels the eyes on him and looks up, meets that sharp green gaze, and _knows_.

The man looks back at him, careful, assessing, and then nods, turns, and strides into the Chief's office with barely a pause to knock.

Ianto tucks his hands into his pockets, because anything he touches right now will doubtless change, and he doesn't need to start his tenure at Torchwood by turning the secretary's desk into a maple tree. There are voices coming from the office, but he pointedly doesn't listen in; eavesdropping, while tempting, is also likely not a good way to start his career.

Then the blond man strides back out, walks straight up to Ianto, and says, "I'm Marcus Maddox. I'll be showing you around." When Ianto hesitates—he's still nervous, not completely in control, and doesn't even want to _consider_ the fact that he knows he could turn this man into ash and water vapor—he smiles. "No, don't worry, I'm better than that. You can't hurt me, Ianto Jones."

Ianto looks down at the proffered hand, and his breath catches in his throat. There's a black circle inked into the skin, two concentric rings with twelve runes between the bands. In the center is an ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail, exquisitely drawn.

Maddox catches his look, and smiles. He urges Ianto towards another door and follows him through, closing it behind them. "Yes," he says when Ianto turns to face him again. "I'm like you. An alchemist."

"And the circle?" Ianto asks. He leaves his hands in his pockets.

Maddox rubs the tattoo with his thumb, smile turning a little wistful. "Twelve main runes in alchemy," he says. "Twelve levels of power you can use, if you're balanced. Twelve steps from base human to true alchemist. Twelve steps to immortality. Not every alchemist makes it."

 _But you did_ , Ianto thinks. He's young, so young, and all his life he's been an outsider, been different. This is the first time in his entire life that he's met someone who can say _I'm like you_ , and be even slightly truthful.

He looks at that tattoo, at the ouroboros engraved into the man's skin, and thinks, _But you did, and so will I._

* * *

(Too far back. The past has passed.)

* * *

"Did you all join Torchwood because you have magic?"

"It's not quite that simple, Gwen. All humans have a spark inside them, a bit of potential that they never use. It's always been that way. But sometimes, a human with an especially strong spark will encounter a bit of the Everafter, a person or a thing or even a breeze, coming from a place where that potential is more than just a possibility, and it brings it out."

"That happened to all of them?"

"Tosh found an artifact made of magic and technology. Owen…Owen met a demon. And Ianto…he's a bit different. Alchemists are born with their potential fully realized. It comes out at the end of puberty, when the body's strong enough to support the power. He didn't have to touch the Everafter; he was already a part of it."

"And you, Jack?"

"Me? I'm from a time when all humans have magic. The rest was…a bit of bad luck."

* * *

(Too far forward. Skip back.)

* * *

"That's the third body this week," Owen says, dropping the files on the table. "Stripped clean of everything. Something even cracked the bones and sucked the marrow out."

Jack spreads the files out on the conference table, even though they all know the gruesome scenes by heart already. He frowns over them for a minute. "More cannibals? This is close to what we saw in Brynblaidd."

Owen's already shaking his head. "Not unless they've gotten major dental work done somewhere. See those tooth marks, Harkness? You're not pretty enough to be just a pretty face."

Ianto snorts as Jack glares, but covers it by setting coffee mugs in front of each person. "I've matched several of the marks to old cases that were never solved," he offers, as Owen picks those reports out of the pile. "A lamia, a troll, at least two ghouls, a kelpie, a hydra—the list goes on. But there's only one link between them that I'm finding."

"All carnivorous," Jack says, drumming his fingers on the table. "All usually solitary, and all with a taste for human flesh. Tosh—"

Her eyes electric-white, she waves him to silence. "I'll check the records, see which immigrants have missed their check-ins lately, and send you the list."

"And I'll check the bodies for any identifying factors more specific than tooth size." Owen pushes himself to his feet. "Tea boy, you're with me. I'm not playing runner in the Archives whenever I find something."

* * *

(There's a beginning, even if it's one of many.)

* * *

"The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail. The Ouroboros has been said to have a meaning of infinity or wholeness. In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the _prima materia_ of the art was man himself. The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This 'feed-back' process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the _prima materia_ which [...] unquestionably stems from man's unconscious."

~ Carl Jung, Carl Jung, _Collected Works_ , Vol. 14 para. 513

* * *

(Exposition. Skip back.)

* * *

The number had appeared on Ianto's phone two days after Canary Wharf, though he hadn't given it much thought at the time, too concerned with Lisa to think of anything else.

He looks at it now, finger hovering over the call button, and then takes a deep breath.

Maddox picks up on the second ring, before Ianto can lose his courage and hang up.

"Ianto," he greets easily, because for all he devoted himself to his research into the intricacies of alchemy, Ianto had never seen him refuse to help when it was asked of him. "What can I do for you?"

Another breath to bolster his courage, and Ianto says softly, "The twelfth rune…it's beautiful, isn't it?"

Silence from the other end of the line, and then a long, slow sigh. "Yes," Maddox agrees, and there's a smile in his voice. "It is."

"Is there…?"

"Yes, but don't worry. I'll notify the correct people, and see about getting you fully initiated into the Order. You know you'll have to get the tattoo, like the rest of us?"

Ianto nods, an automatic reaction even if Maddox can't see him. "I assumed, yes. Is…?"

"It's wonderful." There's a note of pride there, too, something that makes Ianto feel warm, because Maddox is the one who taught him control, who showed him how to look at a thing and see it as its component parts, right down to its atoms. "I always knew you had promise, Ianto. But…nine years to become immortal. I haven't heard of anything like that in a long time."

 _Immortal_. The word repeats in Ianto's head, bell-clear and somehow sharp. He hasn't said it loud yet, never managed to steel himself enough against the thought of _forever_. But this…

This is all right.

"Thank you," he manages, and Maddox doesn't have to ask why.

* * *

(Turn it back.)

* * *

"Why the Latin?"

"Sir?"

"When you're casting your circles, you always use Latin, but almost never the same words, even for the same changes."

"It's a focus, like Tosh's computer. She uses it to channel her powers to a certain aim, like a set of guidelines ensuring it will act correctly. The words are the same for me. They don't have to mean anything, really; it's all about the intent behind them. They…help, and keep me from accidentally changing things I touch. A trigger, I suppose. That's all."

* * *

(Flip to the end; that's where this story starts.)

* * *

Jack gasps back to life not in the underground bunker where a troll had killed him, but in bright sunshine, with sand beneath his back. He jerks upright, head spinning, and barely registers the fact that he's lying in the center of a huge crater, littered with ash and knee-deep with sand.

Fifteen meters away, a ghoul, twisted and macabre, drops to all fours, shifts into a hyena, and lunges forward, tearing out Ianto's throat too quickly for him to defend himself.

The cry of fury and terror rips itself out of Jack's throat before he can stop it, and in an instant, he's on his feet, Webley yanked from the ruin of his bloody, mangled clothes. The bullets are carved with runes to dissipate evil, and a single shot to the head has the ghoul falling, crumpling into a heap of malformed, rotting limbs.

Nothing moves.

And then Ianto takes a gurgling breath, coughs, and sits up, hands flying up to his throat. He wipes the blood and gore away, smears it until Jack can see there's simply no damage left, and then looks up. His eyes meet Jack's, and Jack isn't sure which of them is more stunned.

"But…you were dead," Ianto whispers, and his voice isn't even hoarse.

"So were you," Jack says weakly, and manages to stagger closer before his legs give out and bear him to the ground. He's only inches from Ianto, but can't bring himself to reach across the space, because the he'll _know_ this is all a fantasy, a dream, and Ianto will be dead on the ground.

Ianto doesn't seem to have the same problem, given how he throws himself at Jack and nearly knocks them both back into the sand.

…Which is not supposed to be here, on the edge of the city, in what used to be a bomb shelter.

Jack blinks at it, the fine grey grains beneath them, at the scattered spots of ash and dark patches of water, and then looks at Ianto, who flushes a little.

"I thought you were dead," he defends. "Control was not exactly foremost on my mind."

The torn collar of his shirt shifts as he sits back, falling open, and Jack sees something that he hasn't before, etched into the skin over Ianto's heart.

A snake, eating its own tail within an alchemical circle, twelve runes between the concentric rings.

He reaches out, traces his fingers over it, and looks up at Ianto, who's watching him solemnly.

"All twelve of the greatest alchemical symbols," Ianto says softly, and Jack remembers those words, spoken over the ashes of what had once been Lisa. "The final stage of alchemy, and the ouroboros for immortality."

And really, Jack thinks, leaning forward to drop his head onto Ianto's shoulder, that's all the answer he needs.

* * *

(Pause here; fade to black.)


	7. The Graveyard of Bells

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This is me abandoning canon the same way a rat does a sinking ship. Not that there's anything wrong with canon, but I kind of want to explore my own universe a bit. Therefore, to whoever is still reading this, I'll be dragging you along for the ride. Apologies for that, and for the insanity that this chapter became. It's...rather odd.

The sound of the bells is nearly deafening. Louder, louder, louder, until Ianto has to clap his hands over his ears and duck his head, cowering from the sound. It's too much, ringing through the rows of towering, silent trees, even though it doesn't so much as disturb a single leaf. The noise aches inside of Ianto's head, a vibration that is more than sound, but something less than magic.

"The bells," says the old woman, "are announcing another death."

* * *

(A moment from the end is no place to start. Rewind.)

* * *

Maddox stands with Ianto, directly on his right. There are alchemists in front of them, twenty, maybe thirty, men and women who do not look anywhere near old enough to hold the positions that they do.

Men and women who all bear the ourobouros.

"Ianto Jones," the man in the center chair says, leaning forward. He looks no older than Jack, at the very most - perhaps closer to Ianto's age. But his smile has a depth that only age could have given, and there's a shining darkness in his eyes. "Ianto Jones, you're truly one of us now. Welcome to the fold, brother."

Ianto bows his head, because there's really no other response he can make, and feels Maddox's large, calloused hand settle at the top of his spine.

"Dante," Maddox says warmly. "We thank you."

A young woman - _Like Tosh_ , Ianto thinks dazedly, before he remembers that she is doubtless decades older, maybe even centuries - approaches like a dancer, quiet and graceful, carrying a bowl of ink and a set of needles.

"Where would you like the mark?" she asks Ianto, smiling gently. Her blue eyes also hold that darkly brilliant depth, and Ianto wonders if he'll gain the same, in time.

Then her question registers, and Ianto realizes the answer instantly.

There's only one choice, really.

(Alchemy has always before been _his,_ something he's used only for himself. But here and now, in this moment, Ianto can only remember the look on Jack's face when he grew the tiny tree that's still rooted in his desk, when he turned the cog door to wood and then to water, when circles burned beneath his feet and blood covered his hands and Lisa was a pile of ash but everyone else was _safe._

That's what his alchemy is for. That's what _he_ is for, now and forever.

His mind is Jack's, his soul is Jack's, his alchemy belongs to Jack.)

"Here," he says, and pulls away his neatly ironed shirt, letting it fall to the ground. "Here," he says, laying one hand over his heart.

 _For Jack_ , he thinks, and he _is._

* * *

(Run it forward; that's too far back.)

* * *

UNIT calls them, which is a surprise - but then, UNIT consists almost entirely of normal humans, all with their potential still unrealized, and Torchwood is magical almost to a man.

Jack takes the call with a minimum of gloating, for which Ianto gives him another cup of coffee on the sly. It seems that people have been disappearing in a small town outside of Merthyr Tydfil, and UNIT's best teams can't find the cause.

"The sidhe again?" Gwen asks as they load the SUV. "Could it be?"

"It's not just children disappearing," Ianto reminds her. "The sidhe only take thier chosen ones, and I've found no weather patterns like the ones when Jasmine was taken."

"Maybe something's eating them and UNIT's just too stupid to see it," Owen suggests. Tosh is next to him, struggling with an unwieldly computer case, and without even seeming to notice, he grabs one end and helps her heft it into the back. Her blush is almost luminescent, though Owen doesn't seem to notice, and Ianto wonders if there will be an opportunity to bash his head against the idea of a steady relationship on this jaunt. After all, Owen and Gwen have been over for several weeks now, and Owen's temper is steadily declining in a way that means he's not getting laid, so he should be open to the idea.

"Or," Jack cuts in, emerging from the elevator, "there's something hiding whatever's doing this from human eyes."

Ianto bats him away when he goes to slide into the driver's seat. "No," he orders sternly. "Detective Swanson politely requested that I never allow you behind the wheel if there's any help for it. I'll drive."

Jack's pout is getting a workout these days, it seems.

* * *

(Skip.)

* * *

The forest is dark and utterly still, no wind to shake the branches or set the leaves to dancing. Or -

"Bells," Tosh murmurs, looking up. "There are bells tied onto all of the branches."

Ianto follows her gaze, and there are. Hundreds upon thousands of silver bells, one after another, hung from the boughs with crimson thread. There are so many that the trees seem to shimmer silver in the murky twilight, an illusion of purity in the darkness. In the beams from the torches they are unearthly, brilliant, and the glitter goes on as far as Ianto's eyes can see, down the perfectly straight rows of trees and away.

"No noise," Ianto says quietly. "Nothing's moving in here."

The entire forest is as silent and motionless as a tomb.

* * *

(Turn it back.)

* * *

There is an inn several miles from anywhere, run by an old woman with a lined face and tired eyes. She puts them up, but doesn't speak, and Ianto watches her as she walks away, unsettled and unable to say why.

"Ianto," Jack calls, then, and he turns away.

"Yes?"

* * *

(Is that important?

It is.

Skip.)

* * *

The ourobouros seems to crawl beneath Ianto's skin, to writhe and twist and turn the way Ianto wants to, but can't, not when he's overwhelmed by sound and trapped in the midst of a silvery cacophony. There is still no wind, nothing that should shake the branches, but the bells are chiming anyway, beautiful but terrible.

"A death," the old woman says again, and they go silent.

Ianto staggers upright and stumbles away from her, falling over his own feet. His palms are itching, his blood is singing, and his head is pounding, but there's no relief here, none to be found in this cursed place.

Here and there amongst the tree roots, Ianto can finally make out glimmers of dusty brown, choked by dirt and rocks.

The stories always lie. Bones aren't white unless they've been bleached by the sun, and no sun can ever enter the Forest of Bells.

"Another victim?" Ianto manages, stomach twisting. The ourobouros is burning, a brand against his otherwise chilled skin, and he knows without looking that it's burning darkly, visible even through the fabric of his shirt.

He's never, ever not been able to use his alchemy before, not since he first woke up with it surging through his veins, and there's a very real possibility that the lack of it will truly drive him mad.

"Another sinner," she corrects, merciless even as her form begins to twist and change. She's growing younger before Ianto's eyes, becoming beautiful, but if anything she looks more terrible like this, more awful when beauty hides the shape within. "There are always sacrifices, always a cost. They've done wrong twice over, and now this is their cost."

Ianto wonders, grimly, who it is that's died now. Really, he can only hope that it's Jack, horrible as that is, and not the man they entered the Forest to protect, not one of the team, so vulnerable to this ghastly place.

He forces his eyes away from the dark rust-red that stains the earth, the stones, the roots of the trees.

There's no time to dwell on things like that.

The woman, now young and lovely, with skin like porcelain and hair like white silk, smiles at Ianto, and it is full of thousands of needle-sharp teeth. " _Seven souls every seven years_ ," she sing-songs, like it's some kind of twisted childhood rhyme. " _Seven second chances wasted, seven tainted souls taken. The Forest of Bells grows stronger and stronger; the sins of men grow longer and longer._ "

In the branches above, the bells begin to chime again.

* * *

(Something's missing.

Rewind.)

* * *

The forest appears out of thin air seven miles from the town. In the space of a single heartbeat, there is suddenly a vast expanse of trees stretching out before them, perfectly uniform in their dark, ruler-straight rows, the trunks completely smooth as they rise from the loamy earth, bare of undergrowth or even grass.

Jack draws his gun, turns on his torch, and, as ever, they follow him.

But one step over the border, where rich green grass turns to bare brown earth, and everything goes wrong.

Ianto sucks in a sharp breath as the ground lurches under his feet, grabbing onto the first solid thing that he can reach - Tosh, in this case. She cries out as well, and all the balance in the world won't help them as everything tilts and whirls.

They fall, a jumbled tangle of limbs and nerves, and scramble back to their feet as soon as they can.

That's when Ianto notices that something's missing.

Always, always before, he's been able to look at things and break them down in his head, identify the component atoms and map out the simplest possible changes he can make to them. Now, though, he looks at Tosh, and instead of immediately picking out the percentage of carbon and oxygen and hydrogen in her body, the composition of each exhalation, all he can see is...

A body.

It's terrifying.

Tosh must recognize the horror on his face - she's seen it before, after all, in Brynblaidd - because she immediately reaches out for him with one hand, reaches for her comm with the other. "Ianto?" she demands. "What's wrong? Jack, are you there? Owen? Gwen?"

There are no sparks leaping from her fingertips, though, no white blankness overtaking her eyes, and Ianto realizes with a sinking sort of dread just what's happened.

"Gone," he whispers. "Our magic - it's gone."

Somewhere deeper in the woods, there's laughter, as bright and silvery as bells, and Ianto and Tosh turn back to back, hearts pounding.

The forest is dark and utterly still, no wind to shake the branches or set the leaves to dancing. Or -

"Bells," Tosh murmurs, looking up.

* * *

(Break it off here. Turn the hands back.)

* * *

There are disappearances everywhere, all the time. There's no real way to pick out which ones mean more than the others, no matter how good the Torchwood team tends to be at their jobs.

This time, though, Ianto thinks they've found the common thread.

"They were all reformed criminals," Tosh says, laying the folders out on the scarred, listing table. "Though for a certain value of 'reformed.' Six of them, all turning over a new leaf and then backsliding - there's got to be some sort of connection there."

Ianto hands another set of papers to Jack. "And there's only one other man who fits the criteria in this area. We think he's the next target."

Andrew Michaels stares up from the paper, dark and scared.  
He never meant to live the life of a criminal.

* * *

(Now he's going to die as one.)

* * *

(Wait.)

* * *

Ianto wakes up in Jack's bed for the third morning running, deliciously tired and even more wonderfully sore, the aftermath of sex like a silken bruise all up and down his body. Jack lies next to him, deeply - no matter what he tells Gwen - asleep, with one arm thrown over Ianto's hips and his head curled on Ianto's chest.

For an endless, too-brief moment, Ianto doesn't move, staring up at the ceiling of the bunker and...simply wondering.

How this has become his normal, how this has become his life - Ianto couldn't say if asked, but nevertheless, it's _glorious._

He shifts a little, repositioning, and manages to free one arm enough to card his fingers through Jack's soft, fine hair. Jack murmurs softly at the first touch, but quickly settles, and there's a feeling in Ianto's chest like his heart is several sizes too large to comfortably fit.

But he swallows it down, swallows back the words that spring forth, and simply breathes, _"Forever,"_ into the stillness of the early morning air.

Jack murmurs a sleepy agreement into his skin, and then subsides.

* * *

(Play the end now; let it run.)

* * *

There are skeletons rising from the earth, scattered bones pulling together, with bits of flesh and tendons still clinging to them, bloodstained as though some messy eater has been at them. They assemble themselves around the trees, beneath the gently chiming bells, and stride forwards with macabre grace. Ianto is entirely unashamed to admit that he runs from them, ducks behind trees and dodges around upthrust rocks as skeletal hands grab for him. they snag at his shirt, tear it with bony fingers, and Ianto lets them have it, wriggles out of the tattered cloth with an ease learned in street fights as a child.

But there are more of them than there are of him, so many more, and for the first time there is no alchemy-itch in his palms, wanting to be used, no magic singing in his muscles and blood.

A bony hand slam into his jaw, knocking him sideways, and Ianto falls hard, tumbling and rolling until he crashes into the roots of a great tree. There are more hands waiting there, grasping through the dirt to seize his arms and pull him down. Ianto cries out, struggles as hard as he can, but it's no use. He can't break free.

 _No alchemy_ , Ianto thinks desperately. _Does that mean no immortality?_

_Am I going to die here?_

The gunshot is deafening.

Above them, the bells go mad. This is no carefully uniform chiming, this is a tree shaken by a hurricane, all branches thrashing, insanity and fury and terror all woven together.

But the skeletons let go.

"Come on!" Jack cries, and there are hands on Ianto again, _living_ hands, pulling him to his feet and into a run. Tosh is on one side of him, Owen gripping her hand, with Gwen in front of them, and they run flat-out, sliding around stilled skeletons and skirting the body of the pale-haired woman, who lies sprawled out with a bullet hole in the center of her forehead.

But the edge of the wood is in sight, getting closer, and still the bones of the Forest's victims aren't moving.

They stumble over the border, all five of them pale and shaking, and the rush of power suddenly flooding back into Ianto's veins is like nothing he's ever felt before, drugs and sex and freefall and a near miss with death all at once and in a single second. Ianto gasps, sucks in air that is seventy-eight percent nitrogen and twenty percent oxygen and one percent argon, and less than one percent neon, helium, and krypton, and other trace amounts of various other elements.

It's _freedom._

Jack is still clinging to his hand, breathing hard, head bowed. When Ianto manages to gather his strength and raise his head, Jack meets his eyes, full of warmth and relief and something that Ianto doesn't dare name, not now.

"Michaels?" he asks instead.

"Dead," Gwen manages, wiping a hand over her face and holstering her gun. "We never saw what got him."

Ianto looks back at the Forest of Bells, and somehow he's unsurprised to see the young woman standing there, hands neatly clasped in front of her, her toes at the very edge of the bare earth.

"You're not to come back," she tells them, and Ianto feels it as all of Jack's muscles go taut. "This is a place for the dead, and you're not welcome here, either of you."

There is no rush of magic, no flicker, no spell. The Forest simply...fades away.

Jack scrubs a hand over his face, blows out a short, hard breath, and says, "Let's go home."

(The entire walk back to the SUV, he doesn't let go of Ianto's hand, and Ianto doesn't ask him to.)

* * *

(Hold the scene a moment longer.

Fade out.)


	8. FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rather than leaving this an eternal WIP or taking it down (because I'm fond of it, really), I'm going to stick a period here. Other people are welcome to add to this universe, but here I bid you all adieu.

_(Find an end and run it forward; other stories must start from here.)_

They walk in darkness, halfway between the shadow of the land and the light of the city, forever caught here. Jack was fixed, and Ianto has fixed himself, though in the end he had perhaps as little choice as Jack. But they are both of them immortal, both of them unchanging even as they change forever, held here at this point in time with the universe unfurling at their feet.

Roundstone Wood is cool and silent, eerie in the dimness, and Ianto knows that there are eyes within the trees, brownies and sprite and dryads, Sidhe like half-seen shadows gliding past. But here is where he and Jack are equal, neither Torchwood nor civilian life, but somewhere in between.

The universe spins, the stars align, and Ianto looks up from the leaves his steps turn black and says, very softly, “You know what the ouroboros stands for, Jack.”

It’s not a question, because Ianto remembers speaking these words before, “ _All twelve of the greatest alchemical symbols, the final stage of alchemy, and the ouroboros for immortality_ ”, murmuring them into ash-scented air when Jack reached out and put a hand over Ianto's heart—as though he had already realized, even then, that it was his and his alone.

Jack stops in the shadow of a particularly tall tree, which blocks out the moonlight and leaves his face a mystery. “Yes,” he says at length. “You told me.”

“And I saw you wake up,” Ianto continues, looking away from the darkness of an unknown face, familiar turned unrecognizable with the lack of light. They’ve neither of them said the words, never once said _I'm immortal_ even though it’s clear that they both recognize it well enough. Jack is still hesitant, unwilling to risk his heart so completely even when the risk is really very small. Because as it is now, he can pretend that he doesn’t understand what Ianto is, can keep him at arm’s length and pretend that it’s because Ianto is mortal and will die. Truthfully, honestly, Jack is scared because he has had an eternity condensed into two hundred years to become accustomed to leaving people, to being left. It’s gone on so long that Ianto has to wonder if he even remembers how to stay.

Ianto has never had to face eternity before, and he does so now with hands that do not shake, but only because they _never_ shake. There is steel in his heart and iron in his blood, and with his alchemy steel can be oak and iron can be gold, and Ianto can live through the ages.

“You did.” Jack whispers it like it’s a deeply held secret, like he’s never told anyone before, and maybe he hasn’t.

Ianto looks back at him, because he always does, he can't look away for long no matter what is happening around them. Jack has shifted, or the moon has, and now light glances off his skin, dances across his cheek and tumbles from his jaw like tears to stain the ground. Jack is watching him in return, eyes so wary and careful that it just about breaks Ianto's heart, but there's a spark of hope there, too.

No matter what, Jack always has hope.

It’s one of the things Ianto loves most about him, besides everything.

Ianto looks at him, and Jack looks back, and Ianto could say the words if he wanted, could bind them together with two simple words that are more constraining, more compelling than any “I do.”

But he won't, because that’s not how it is between them. Because Jack runs and flies and is forever free, and Ianto will always, always, _always_ be the one to wait, to hang behind and look past, to see what he needs to and do what he must, while Jack is the brave, bold hero, saving both of them.

Ianto is wearing a simple dark oxford, not quite buttoned all the way. He undoes the buttons that are still closed, pulls away the jewel-toned cloth and lets it fall among the leaves. His tattoo glitters in the moonlight like diamond-dusted obsidian, stark against his pale skin. One hand pressed over it, memories of trees and wood and water and blood and ash, and Ianto says simply, softly, “Yours , Jack, it’s always been yours. Didn’t you know? Haven’t you realized?”

Jack steps closer, one step, two steps, out of the shadows and into the light, and he lays his hand over Ianto's as though it belongs there.

(It does.)

“I…couldn’t,” he whispers, pained, but whether he means now or then Ianto isn’t sure. “But…”

“Yes,” Ianto tells him, because Jack will never get another answer from him. It’s always a yes for Jack, and if he doesn’t know that by now he hasn’t been watching closely enough these past few weeks.

Jack kisses him in the darkness, kisses him in the light, holds him under the moon and in the wild wood and in the midst of a million souls, none of them watching—or all of them watching, maybe, but Ianto wouldn’t care at all. Jack is like gravity, painful and grounding and permanent, like the death that will never touch either of them, sure and certain and to be feared even as it comes with a soft and careful touch.

They break apart, shatter into two separate pieces once more, but only for the breadth of a sigh and the length of a breath before the word settles once more.

The kiss ends, but everything must end before something new may start.

 

_(The universe spins, the stars align, and the world turns. Above and below them, there is only sky.)_

****

**_caret initio et fine_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin translation-y stuff, for those curious (some are conjugated, some are not, as I picked them for their dramatic sound more than their meaning):
> 
> Inmotus - immovable  
> Incipere - begin (v. form)  
> lapis philosophorum - Philosopher's Stone  
> Praescribo - draw/write/inscribe  
> Evito - kill/murder (v. form - interestingly enough, it also has a secondary meaning of 'escape', which I thought was fitting.)  
> Permuto - shift/alter/swap  
> Coepio - begin/commence  
> Muto - transform  
> Adnihilo - destroy  
> Termino - end/terminate/destroy


End file.
